Artist Links

In the summer of 2015, Matthew Caws – the singer/guitarist of Nada
Surf – was sitting at his kitchen table in Brooklyn frantically writing
what would become Nada Surf’s seventh album, the critically acclaimed
You Know Who You Are (Feb’ 2016), when an email arrived that would
delight and terrify him. Once a year, FM4 in Austria chooses an artist
for a national orchestral concert that’s broadcast across the country,
and they reached out to Nada Surf asking if the band would like to be
the next. Soon after receiving the FM4 request, the band secured a
similar offer from Radio Eins in Berlin to perform live on air with the
Babelsberg Film Orchestra, which derives its name from and is affiliated
with the legendary Babelsberg Studios where notable films such as
Metropolis, Dr. Mabuse and The Blue Angel were made.

Nada Surf asked their good friend, multi-instrumentalist Martin Wenk,
whose own band Calexico had done the FM4 Vienna Radio Symphony concert
in 2013, to oversee the details with composer Max Knuth, while the band
focused on putting the finishing touches on You Know Who You Are.

On Peaceful Ghosts, the orchestrations cover a broad stylistic range,
James Bond at one extreme and joy and wonder of Walt Disney at the
other, with a whole range of surprises in between. Classics such as the
delicate melancholy of “Blonde On Blonde” unfold to surprising new
places with soaring countermelodies, while new favorites from You Know
Who You Are, including “Rushing” and “Out of the Dark”, showcase the
power and majesty of the original without losing the lyrical and musical
subtlety that has become the hallmark of Nada Surf for the past twenty
years.